In the Morgue
by The Atomic Cafe
Summary: Hawkes watches the lab from the morgue.


**In the Morgue**

**By Dimgwrthien**

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI: NY or affiliates.

The morgue was a silent buzz of music and talk. Strangely enough, there was never silence in the room of the dead, never a single sad word spoken. It was the tomb of the Ancient Egyptians. Death was a part of existence, something to show off and watch with interest.

Frank and Nancy Sinatra crooned from the radio as Sheldon Hawkes listened to a young girl of a medical examiner list off everything she could find in their gift of a corpse on the table. She had nicely tanned skin and dark curls that she never let loose. Hawkes loved watching her move, listening to the sound of her voice. She couldn't be from the area - maybe a Midwest girl, possible just the plain West. Maybe she used to sing in a school choir and gave up when she realized that it would have been too easy to be famous and not challenging enough.

Hawkes considered asking her out for drinks but pressed the thought out of his mind. She kept glancing up at him, her eyes meeting his for a long time. She had a light smile on her face the entire time, her white teeth peeking through her full lips.

"So I was thinking that it would have been the pressure to the arteries rather than blunt trauma. Not enough force from the bruising." Devin raised her eyebrows so that they almost disappeared into her curly bangs. "Whatcha think?"

Hawkes tried to look at though he was considering it. "I think so. The bruises there are heavier, and there's evidence of the blood flow stopping before even the jaw. I'll find Stella for you so that you can -"

"Don't bother." Devin rolled those expressive and dark eyes of hers. "We all know where Stella is."

"Where?"

"Somewhere in the hallway with Mac." Devin gave Hawkes a small smile and motioned with her jaw to the door. "They've been talking out there for at least an hour. Got through an entire Sinatra record and God knows how long those things are."

Hawkes considered how long they were. "Nancy or Frank?"

"Frank and two autopsies," Devin answered, and Hawkes winced. The last time Mac and Stella had waited in the hallway for that long, half the lab didn't speak for the entire day in fear of one of the two breathing fire on them.

The code of thumb in the morgue seemed to change depending on the group. Out of the people Hawkes worked with the most, he found Aiden and Danny to be the safest bet. If they took only a few minutes talking outside, it was a fight between them. If they spoke throughout an entire Elvis album, it was a _very_ good thing. Flack usually spoke to people for the length of one Meatloaf song or less. Mac and Stella were usually quiet around other people. Anything longer than one of the younger examiner's pop CDs usually meant trouble.

Life in the morgue was different from the rest of the lab. Everyone seemed preoccupied with blood splatters and fingerprints, which consumed them, making them think they were the business-suit-wearing men of the job. Underground (as Devin had coined the morgue a few weeks back) was similar to a high school honors math class when the teacher was gone. Work was being done, but they couldn't help but find some way to pass the time better.

Hawkes listened closely, watching Devin's face as she seemed to do the same. Over the sound of the father and daughter duet of "_And if we go someplace to dance, I know there's a chance you won't be leaving with me…_" was the sound of Stella's voice.

"If you had considered -" She sounded angry, though Hawkes wondered if that was an understatement. She was near screaming at Mac.

Devin bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes going wide as though to say, "Whoops."

"_Saying something stupid like 'I love you'…_"

"Turn that down," Hawkes hissed to the examiner next to him, who nodded and twisted the knob until the words faded. Devin closed her eyes, listening harder.

"The case is closed, Mac! Once we -"

"We can get old evidence out! There's a reason for retesting, and it's to make sure of the result -"

Both cut each other off as they yelled. Hawkes tried to think of what they previous case had been, but failed. Something with an older woman. Hawkes remembered her ribcage being difficult to snap to cut the 'y' pattern into her chest, but nothing more than that.

He had worked in the morgue for a few years. When he considered the length of time, he couldn't come up with an exact number. Hawkes had worked with the lab before he had been hired by them. If asked, his response was usually, "A while." It had taken him nearly a week to figure it out for his application to move to the field. The best length he could come up with was meeting Mac when he was somewhat more human and joked with the lab, then working for him once Mac turned into… Mac.

Hawkes couldn't think of Mac any differently than that. Whenever Mac stood near Danny, his shoulders tensed slightly and his voice would become a solid New York accent that almost sounded awkward on him. It wasn't fear or even anger, but a certain wariness that he had to keep Danny in line.

Aiden and the other 'new' lab techs and detectives got a warmer treatment. Mac smirked at their jokes, held the doors open for them, and generally ignored them when he could. Hawkes never saw anything more ironic than Mac's office with its glass walls. Why be the godly boss when you didn't want to stand out?

Flack was a special type of person. Hawkes supposed that they went back far, but always considered a friendship between Mac and Flack's father possible. He couldn't understand any of that dynamic - it was too subtle to be noticed, as was the change in the conversation whenever Flack's father was mentioned. A change in their eyes, a subtle tightening of the lips, and a pace in their speech as they changed the conversation.

Stella was different. Whenever Hawkes looked closely at the two, he couldn't quite tell their age. Stella looked no older than her early thirties, and Mac no older than his early forties, if that for either. Doing the math with those guessed ages never helped him understand how long they had known each other. Maybe he'd have to find out their exact ages sometime. It had to be a long time, though, from the way they played off each other. During a case, it was as though Mac could say, "Reminds me of that case back in…" and Stella could answer, "Back in 1997 with the woman who was raped five miles south of the Brooklyn Bridge."

That's what made the medical examiners realize that long conversations between the two were never good signs.

Back in 2001, when Hawkes was still getting used to the layout of the lab that seemed to change everyday, he got lost in the main hall of the precinct, trying to find which door to follow to the morgue. Mac had just gone back to work a day or two after Claire's funeral with dark circles under his eyes and a strangely flat voice. (Hawkes remembered the first thing that had come to his mind as though it had been drilled in there: 'Presence of varicose veins under the eyes, fatigue due to stress and depression. Time of death - two days ago at about 8:46 in the morning.')

Stella looked at Mac. Just a simple look, the same kind she gave him everyday. Hawkes knew that she had been the only person to leave work to get to the hospital to follow Mac. She had returned a few hours later, her eyes redder than usual and refused to speak and she set about straightening up the evidence room.

Once Mac saw that look, he muttered, "It's straightened out." Another look from Stella. "It's tomorrow at ten." Another look. "Everything is finished for it. Let me just get back to work." Another look. "What?"

Stella gave Mac a long, sad look for a moment. "You doing alright?"

Mac gave Stella a long look, and the two of them got back to work.

Hawkes still couldn't understand what a single one of those looks had meant. He replayed the scene whenever he saw Mac and Stella fighting outside the morgue or in Mac's office, trying to remember that they could care about each other even throughout their vicious arguments that got too personal too quickly.

It was a simple comfort, one that Hawkes hadn't felt in a long time. In fact, he couldn't remember anytime he had that kind of conversation with someone. Throughout school, it was books, books, books, learn, learn, learn, keep your head down and be a good boy, don't get in trouble. Don't get close to your patients. Don't learn about them. Just operate and keep them healthy.

Maybe it was a different kind of check-up between the two.

The voices died down from outside. Hawkes and Devin tried to look out the doors, but were saved the trouble as Stella entered the morgue, the door slamming shut behind her. It opened again, Mac entering on Stella's heels.

"What's the cause of death?" Stella asked, her voice still snappy, as she reached Devin. Devin cleared her throat and looked back at the body.

"If you look at the bruises on the neck, it's from damage to the ar-"

Stella nodded. "Arteries. Got it."

Mac glanced at Stella for a moment. "Hawkes, I need you to pull out Eliza Goodman. I think she'll be -"

"The case is _closed_," Stella snapped, causing Hawkes to look right at her. "Don't bother. We already -"

"There's new evidence." Mac handed Hawkes a paper, obviously with a note allowing the retrieval of a body from a closed case. "It's right over there -"

Stella glared at Mac. "You closed the case yourself! You're only causing problems for -"

"Since when do you care about the District Attorney?"

Hawkes and Devin watched the two of them, Hawkes still holding the paper. Devin glanced up at him. Hawkes raised his eyebrows and held the note out to Mac.

"If you need it open," he said, his voice loud enough to be heard over them, "give it to another examiner. My shift just ended, and I want to go out for drinks. Devin?"

She nodded. "Shift ended. Done. See ya!"

Hawkes smiled at her, pulling off his gloves and leaving the morgue with her, ignoring Mac and Stella's continuing argument. If he did spend the rest of the day with Devin, got to know her a little better, possibly more, he could only hope to God that he wouldn't end up quite like them.


End file.
